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Web-applications: Speak the right language, please

Fred Oliveira on April 15, 2006

The most frustrating thing in localized applications is when you can’t find the way to change the language it uses, to the one of your choice. Imagine you’re in a remote location where you don’t speak the language and there’s just no way to translate what other people are saying - it can get complicated really fast. The same thing happens with web applications - if your application is multilingual, don’t force people into a language unless you’re absolutely positive it’s the language the user prefers (or more importantly, understands).

It’s not uncommon when even Google falls for it

You may think this is an uncommon error, because only a small number of applications are multi-lingual, but as a classic example, here’s Google’s search preferences page. Google automatically detects the country you’re in and sets the language by default (unless you instruct it not to on that screen). Now the problem is obvious. If I don’t speak the language, how am I going to figure out how to change it in the first place?

Google

It gets (a little) worse

That’s only the first mistake, though. The second mistake is a little more grave than that. Lets say I figure out that the way to change my language in that screen is by using the drop-down select. Google has translated the language names as well, which means that with my Google preferences set to portuguese by default, “English” doesn’t even show up as “English” but “Inglês”. Now, that’s fine for me who can understand both languages just fine. But what if I didn’t? What if my language was english and I had no idea how to spell english in whatever language Google had selected for me?

Google

So the lesson is obvious: multilingual, yes of course. However, let that be languages that the user actually understands, and give him the ability to change (properly).


Comments on this post

maique

i have the exact same problem. and the same solution.

living in portugal, being portuguese, i always get the portuguese version of google when i delete my cookies.
i always have to do the same thing and i always wondered how people managed if they don’t speak the language google choses.

and i’ve the same happen to me in countries that don’t use our alphabet. it took some trial and error…

Sam Mesh

Google already got your advice for “Gmail display language” drop-down select. :)

Marcelo Calbucci

I couldn’t agree more. Here is my view on the problem, the solution and some other comments. :)

http://bravenewword.typepad.com/brave_new_word/2006/04/choosing_your_l.html

Pieter

Wouldn’t it be better if the languages were translated each in the language it represents? That way you’d get a list like: “English”, “Francais”, “Deutsch”, “Nederlands”.
Every user knows what his native language is called in his own language.

Chris

Hi, just came across your post, and I entirely agree, albeit coming from a slightly different perspective. My main problem is that, my operating system being set to German, some websites default to a poorly localized, hardly understandable German version and I have to change the language back to English to understand what they are actually talking about - the particularly evil ones would then try to take me back to the German version at each click. Apart from the hassle, such “over-protective” SW behaviour also creates a sense of disenfranchisement in the user - language navigation on websites is just one out of many examples.

However, are you sure Google uses the IP approach? In my experience, Google’s default language is not determined by location, but rather by the language settings of your OS (at least if Google is able to detect them - maybe it falls back to location when unable to detect OS locale) - whereas other features (for example, local search, ads) are in fact influenced by location, regardless of OS locale. - This may create an interesting mix. For example, I am based in the UK and run a German OS, therefore, google.com would default to German, offer me to only search for pages in German, but on the other hand suggest to use google.co.uk (rather than goolge.at, google.ch or google.de) and display ads for businesses in England.

This actually makes sense in a way, but then again, do I really want to read about AdSense in their clumsy German translation rather than in well-written, easy-to-read English?

Manuel Emygdio

is that… Klingon i see at the bottom of the language listbox?!! :D

namin

It is arguably reasonable of Google to set the default language to the language of the country the user is in. BUT what about multi-lingual countries? I live in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and Google insists on rendering the site in German by default. Now, that’s really annoying.

links for 2006-04-19 at disambiguity

[...] Web-applications: Speak the right language, please (We Break Stuff) The most frustrating thing in localized applications is when you can’t find the way to change the language it uses, to the one of your choice. Language and localisation (what (not) to do) (tags: language translation localisation localization) [...]

David M

Yes, in Singapore the default google search page displays in Mandarin! Even though the populationi 70% chinese, the language of business, advertising, communication, medium of education, are all British English.

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